


Recursion

by pettycoat



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Multi, Past Imperfect Future Unknown, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-10-16 21:45:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17553782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pettycoat/pseuds/pettycoat
Summary: The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as fast.





	Recursion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [prosodiical](https://archiveofourown.org/users/prosodiical/gifts).



> For the 2018 Past Imperfect, Future Unknown exchange, which focuses on time loops and time travel tropes. I'm so sorry for the technical hiccups and hope you enjoy what I wrote!

Axel’s never been that great at planning ahead. Improvising, sure, that’s an artform he’s taken past the grave. He’s been hopping the tightrope between life and death for years now, and  no one, not Isa, not Saix, not even little Roxas have been enough to keep him still for long. A calm fire is a dead fire. Good luck putting out the flames when they’ve already devoured half the town. But a calm fire is also a safe fire. Letting the flames run wild is only a good idea when you don’t care who you burn. And Axel—Axel’s burned a lot of bridges. He attacks Roxas in the basement because it feels like it’s the right thing to do. He tries to kill Roxas because Roxas is the only thing that matters to him anymore. And Roxas kills him because Axel is the only thing holding him back. It’s quick. He regrets everything.

And what comes after, it’s… It’s something, all right.

Axel stares out into the sunset as his ice cream lies uneaten beside him. It won’t melt. Not unless he touches it. And a portal won’t open for him. Not even when he screams. The entire world is like that, stuck in place while he paces grooves in the pavement and counts down memories of heartbeats on his fingers. Twilight Town hasn’t changed since the instant Roxas struck him down in the mansion, and yet this isn’t the Twilight Town he knows. Sometimes he sees the sky flicker out, catching glimpses of code and a great black void. Sometimes the people pop out of thin air, walking the same routes and parroting the same lines any time he bothers to give them a glance. There’s no route for him. He can go wherever he wants. And all he wants to do is stay up here and sulk on the clock tower. Really making the best of that second cheat with death.

“One,” Axel mumbles, counting up the bells he hears in his head. The clock hands have been frozen on noon for as long as he’s been trapped here, but he’s been getting pretty good at keeping track of time, now that he has a reason to go looking for it. He’s been listening for a heartbeat for as long as Lea’s been dead. He’s had practice, hearing things that aren’t there. “Two. Three…” He takes up his ice cream and dangles it over the lip of the tower, swinging it back and forth in time with an invisible pendulum. “Four. Five. Six.” The ice cream begins to drip. “Seven.” Embers race down the stick to carve red lightning bolts in the grain. “Lucky number eight.” He flings the ice cream down and watches it explode into a mist of pixels. “Lucky me.”

Maybe this is payback, he thinks, tracing a seam in the sky where he can see the clouds loop. Payback for letting the others drive Roxas away and payback for letting him get trapped in here in the first place. Maybe this is just what happens to Nobodies when they fade. Stuck in the place where they died, just a bunch of memories with nowhere to go. Not like anyone could tell him, and he’s probably the first guy who’s ever managed to get himself killed inside a computer, however _that_ _’s_ supposed to work. Maybe he’s just data. A shell of a shell. Spread him any thinner and they’ll be using him to coat ice cream sticks. Maybe he’s Lea again. Somehow, that one seems the most ridiculous out of all of them.

“So what now?” Axel asks the sunset. He’s been doing that a lot lately, talking to no one. He’s past the point of feeling sorry for himself. Maybe he’s starting to understand why Roxas went crazy in here. “Keep on burning, or burn it all down?”

The town answers with a crackle of static. Axel answers _that_ with a flurry of loose embers and a chakram flung straight into the face of the clock.

“Can’t believe this,” he mutters, closing his eyes. He drifts for as long as he can in a world where there’s no darkness to ground him. Wind lulls him to sleep. Wind lulls him awake. The clock is back in one piece, and his chakram nowhere in sight. He goes for a walk because he thinks the alternative just might do him in.

He’s down in the tram commons when the sky breaks again. Not a whole lot he can do other than stand there and gawk. When in Rome. The town is at least more active than when he saw it last, but it still feels about as lively as a walk through the morgue.

“Never thought I’d miss the Dusks,” Axel mumbles as he watches the crowd. He doesn’t look anyone in the eyes if he can help it. Whatever’s keeping them active, he doesn’t want to be part of their script. He nabs another ice cream from a vendor’s freezer and smiles wanly as she stares right through him. The clocks still haven’t budged an inch. At least he has one constant. He takes a bite and takes a first step, and everything around him freezes with a silence that deafens.

“Nice work,” Axel mumbles around his ice cream. His slow claps pierce the quiet. “Just like the real thing.” He’s halfway through the meal when he hears distant footsteps.

Axel knows that run. Not a lot of people can make _that_ much noise because not a lot of people have shoes bigger than their head. He recognizes Roxas even before he sees him. The shock is almost enough to keep his mouth shut. It at least keeps him quiet long enough for Roxas to run into the commons and stumble over a loose brick.

“Roxas?!” Axel shouts.

Roxas freezes. He snaps his head to the side to lock eyes with Axel. He’s still dressed in those strange clothes, all checkered white and black with his hair a haystack mess. He looks terrified. The terror doesn’t stick around for long.

“ _You!_ ” Roxas snarls.

Axel has something to say to that, but it gets lost somewhere between the instant Roxas disappears into thin air and the instant he reappears in front of him in a flash of shredded pixels. Axel jumps back and narrowly avoids getting his head caved in by a Keyblade.

“ _Put them back!_ ” Roxas screams. “ _Now!_ ”

Axel barely manages to keep himself from choking on his ice cream. “What are you—?!” A Keyblade jabs his throat.

“What did you do to my friends?” Roxas snaps. He presses the point of the Keyblade harder before Axel can get another word in. “Ever since _you_ showed up, everything’s been—!”

Axel leaps back and tries to summon a chakram on reflex. Tries, because nothing comes but a few stray embers and a crunch of static. It takes another moment for him to realize Roxas is now the only other person he can see in the commons. He trades one shock for the other and tries to find his voice.

“Roxas,” he says, pleading, “ _listen_ to me—!”

“How do you know my name?!” Roxas snaps.

Is this a joke? Is he dreaming? “It’s _me_.” Axel says. “ _Axel_.”

Roxas grits his teeth, tensing like he’s gonna take another swing, but confusion clouds his eyes long enough for Axel to feel like he’s got a chance. It doesn’t last long. Roxas cuts him off before he can think of anything else.

“What is going _on?!_ ” Roxas shouts. He flings down his Keyblade and doesn’t seem the slightest bit shocked when it explodes in a flash of code. He clutches his head. He squeezes his eyes shut. “Hayner! Pence! Olette!” He whirls around to scream into the empty commons. “ _Hayner! Pence! Olette!_ ”

And Axel falls. Where, how, he doesn’t know, but he’s going somewhere fast, and it’s very dark and very cold.

 _Axel_. Roxas’ voice echoes in his head. _Axel!_

“Axel?”

Axel jerks awake and nearly goes tumbling again when he finds himself sitting on the edge of the clock tower. Roxas catches him. Barely.

“Whoa!” Roxas shouts. “You okay?” He’s sitting beside him. He’s wearing a black coat. “You kind of spaced out there for a second.”

Axel gawks at him.

“… Axel?” Roxas asks, softer.

Axel looks around jerkily. Twilight Town. Just Twilight Town. No seam in the sky and no people talking in loops. The clock hands are moving. It’s just past three. He shuffles back and grunts when he hits a wall.

“You’re kind of freaking me out,” Roxas says, half a nervous laugh.

Axel barely hears him. “Where…?” He looks around again, like he’s expecting it to all disappear. “Where did…?”

“Bad dream?” Roxas asks, and Axel freezes.

“Yeah.” Axel scratches his cheek. “Yeah. I guess.”

Roxas tilts his mouth in sympathy. He has a way of doing that, of making it all look so real. Then he frowns again. “You sure you’re okay?”

“… Yeah.” Axel buries his face in his hands. “Yeah.”

“Maybe we should head back,” Roxas says after a moment.

“Read my mind,” Axel mumbles.

A corridor blooms open. Axel has never felt more relieved. He pulls himself to his feet, lightheaded and swaying. Roxas steps through the shadows, turning back to face him. He smiles. Axel almost smiles back before his foot sinks down into empty air. He plunges.

“Axel!” Roxas shouts.

Too late. Axel sees the clock snap back to twelve the instant before he hits the ground.

And then he wakes up.

Wind tousles his hair. The orange-gold clouds curve over him like a bell jar. Axel slowly pushes up to find himself back on the clock tower. Alone. He can hear people laughing and trolley bells jingling. An uneaten ice cream bar is resting on the stone. No corridor comes when he calls for it. It’s cold.

This isn’t the first loop. He doubts it will be the last.

This is just the first one where he’s seen Roxas.

* * *

 

Axel watches him from a distance. Roxas still hasn’t seen him. The beach is warm and breezy, and he can’t remember the last time he’s seen Roxas smile so brightly. He’s with those three kids again. That’s reliable. That’s a constant. They’re eating watermelon on the sand with the tide washing over their toes. Axel couldn’t feel more out of place if he tried. He trails them for hours. They finally split after a long dinner, and Axel watches Roxas disappear into an alley just as the other three snap out of existence the moment he turns his back to them. Axel follows cautiously. Roxas is still there when he turns the last corner.

“Roxas?” Axel calls softly.

Roxas jerks to face him. He’s in his casual clothes, no Keyblade in sight. There’s a moment where Axel’s stomach sinks and he wonders if Roxas has forgotten him again. He doesn’t have to wonder long. The confusion in those eyes quickly turns to hate.

“ _You_ ,” Roxas says coolly.

“Glad you remember me,” Axel says, forcing a casual tone.

“Like I care,” Roxas snaps. He draws his hands up and clenches them. “What’s it going to take for you to _leave_ me _alone?!_ ”

“How much do you remember?” Axel asks.

“Huh?”

“The mansion. The Organization. You beating me into mist. Anything ring a bell?”

“What are you _talking_ about?”

Axel bites his cheek. “Don’t tell me you got yourself captured again.”

“ _What?_ ”

Axel bites down farther before rubbing hard at his eyes. “All right. Okay.” He can work with this. He can improvise. Axel walks forward, and for every step he takes, Roxas takes two steps back. Axel stops. He sighs.

“Look,” Axel says. “We don’t have time for a Q&A. If he scrambled your head again, we’ve got to get you out _fast_. You can still open a corridor, can’t you?”

Roxas doesn’t argue. He doesn’t attack him. He just bolts.

“ _Roxas—!_ ” Axel reaches for his chakrams and a corridor and finds neither. Fire still comes to him, and he doesn’t even have to break into a brisk walk to back Roxas into a corner. A circle of flame shoots up to pin Roxas in place. Axel charges through a wall of fire to find him in a blind panic. Roxas snatches something from the ground and holds it up like he’s going to fight him off with it. A stick. A twig. Even without his chakrams, Axel wants to laugh. Then there’s a flash, as blinding as the sudden pain, and Axel’s flat on the ground, already slipping into shadows. Roxas looks as stunned to see him die as he is to see the Keyblade that’s suddenly materialized in his hand. Axel grits his teeth as the last wisp of flame is snuffed out, and then he’s gone.

* * *

“Whoa!” Roxas catches him. They’re on the clock tower. They’re both dressed in black. “You okay? You kind of spaced out there for a second.”

Axel almost lets himself fall.

“Axel!” Roxas shouts, straining to hold him up. “I can’t—!”

“I’m fine.” Axel pushes up and back. “I’m…” He turns, and he yanks Roxas back for good measure. “You’re here.”

“Uh, _yeah_.” Roxas bats Axel’s hand from his hood. “I’ve _been_ here. You fall asleep or something?” His smile fades when Axel stares at him. He leans in. “What’s wrong with you?”

Axel reaches frantically for a corridor. Nothing comes. “Open a corridor,” he snaps. “Get us out of here.”

“Huh?” One look is enough to drive Roxas back to silence. “Uh…”

Darkness blooms. Axel jumps up and practically rips Roxas off the ground after him.

“Axel!”

Axel isn’t listening. He takes that first plunge into darkness and is more shocked to find that it doesn’t give way under his feet. He runs. As quick as it opens, he falls through a tear in the shadows, and then he’s right back where he started.

“… Axel.” Roxas tugs weakly. “You’re hurting my arm.”

Axel practically has to claw his fingers open to let him go. He looks around at the twilight sky and can’t shake the feeling that it’s closing in on him.

“What’s wrong?” Roxas steps closer. “What happened?”

For once, Axel feels like being honest. “I…” He scratches his head. “I don’t know.”

“Why were you running?” Roxas asks, looking like he doesn’t know if he should run himself.

“I don’t…” Axel clenches his fists in his hair.

“Have a bad dream?” Roxas asks.

Axel feels like he’s been dropped in a tub of ice water.

“Axel.”

Axel swallows the lump in his throat. It takes everything, but he forces out a laugh. “Yeah,” he says. His voice sounds so far away. “A regular nightmare.”

Roxas never tells him they should leave. They talk. He’s glad. It ends the second Axel falls asleep.

* * *

There are rules now. He has guidelines. However little it matters, he knows the loops reset when he dies or goes to sleep. There’s some structure there. There’s clues. The townspeople can talk themselves in circles, but Roxas will always have his own route. He’s the key. And Axel just wants to get him out.


End file.
